Feelings, good and bad, play a large part in everyone’s life. Every day, if we like it or not, we as humans experience emotions like joy, sorrow, fear, anger and jealousy. How we react to these feelings basically determines who we are. As we all know, some of us are more emotional and have more feelings than others. Some of us get mad when we get outfished by a friend. Some of us get depressed. And some of us just get even — you know, by outfishing that person on the next trip.

Another type of feeling that most of us get from time to time is intuition or premonition — basically, feelings of things to come. Have you ever had that strange feeling that something bad is about to happen, or that this week’s lottery is yours for the taking, or that if you just keep beating those mangroves a big old snook is going to annihilate your lure? I sure have. Now, even though these feelings don’t always pan out, which can be a good or bad thing, they are one of the things that keep a lot of fishermen fishing on those not-so-productive days. At some time or other, you must have told yourself, “Just one more cast and then I’ll call it quits.” Why one more cast? Do you really need the practice, or did you just have a feeling?